


I've never been a natural (all I do is try)

by zanthetran



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/F, Fluff, OT3, Oral Sex, Threesome - F/F/F, Vaginal Fingering, this is not very canon compliant alright, we all know this just accept it for what it is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-30
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:02:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28434330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zanthetran/pseuds/zanthetran
Summary: She’s happy.Really! She is! She’s very happy for both Bill and Yaz, and that they found each other and now they’re BillandYaz.She’s happy for them. She loves her companions and Bill has been through...a lot, and Yaz has been through her own stuff and they’ve found solace in each other, and their fam of five is nice with everyone paired off (Bill and Yaz, Ryan and Graham, in their own way).Everyone paired off but her.orthe doctor keeps getting stomach aches every time she sees bill  and yaz being a /couple/ and she can’t for the life of her figure out why.
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor/Bill Potts, Thirteenth Doctor/Yasmin Khan, Thirteenth Doctor/Yasmin Khan/Bill Potts, Yasmin Khan/Bill Potts
Comments: 10
Kudos: 54





	I've never been a natural (all I do is try)

**Author's Note:**

> so uhhhhhhh yea. here we are. thanks to tsuranga 4 the idea (like two months ago) yall are the real clowns <3 also this was my first time writing from the doctors pov and it was super fun so i might do it again sometime.
> 
> title from: mirrorball by taylor swift

She’s happy.

Really! She is! She’s very happy for both Bill and Yaz, and that they found each other and now they’re  _ BillandYaz _ .

_ BillandYaz _ .

She’s happy for them. She loves her companions and Bill has been through... _a_ _lot_ , and Yaz has been through her own stuff (that she doesn’t talk about but that the Doctor has heard in pieces of conversations when she enters the kitchen in the morning) and they’ve found solace in each other, and their fam of five ( _the fab five_ , as Ryan calls it) is nice with everyone paired off (Bill and Yaz, Ryan and Graham, in their own way).

Everyone paired off but her.

But that’s okay! Really! Because she’s happy for them and when they came out and told her she smiled big and nodded and said “ _ brilliant _ ” and her stomach only hurt a little bit (from the bad dirt she ate earlier, she’s sure of it) and she  _ didn’t _ almost crash the tardis when she tried landing it on Del’doh two minutes later.

And nothing really changes in their dynamic after they tell the rest of the fam, and the Doctor sort of forgets about it most of the time. Bill and Yaz aren’t really ones for public displays of affection, and it’s not like they’re the first couple she’s had on the ship either. She’s had loads of couples on her ship sharing a room and spending late nights in one of the kitchens or the planetarium or the garden or the pool and she’s only caught a few of them doing...activities a handful of times (Amy and Rory were the worst by far).  _ And  _ she only gets stomach aches because of what she’s eaten that day, or that week, or that month, because she puts a lot of unsafe things that probably aren’t edible into her mouth and some of them don’t sit right (that’s definitely the reason even if the tardis says otherwise) and it has nothing to do with the way Bill wraps her arms around Yaz’s middle from behind, resting her chin on her shoulder, or how Yaz touches Bill’s arm when they’re in danger like she’s reaching out for a tether, or how —

She doesn’t even _like_ PDA — granted she’s never tried it but she did hug Yaz’s mum that one time but that were a bit weird and she were so excited about the new adventure and having gotten her friends home safe and meeting the parents that she’d acted on instinct and done what she’s pretty sure people do in that situation. _And_ she doesn’t even _do_ human relationships (well, except for River, but she’s not fully human, and that time with Rose, but that were sort of a copy and —)

So yes, she is definitely, absolutely, positively happy for them — both of them. Together. Dating, while they travel with the Doctor. Bill and Yaz.

_ BillandYaz. _

* * *

Her stomach only really bothers her in the morning or late at night and she assumes it’s the tea she’s drinking, or whatever she ate (again, probably too much soil) and so she goes on a search for a different kitchen with a different tea in the cabinet. The first three kitchens have the same tea she’s always been drinking and she’s practically huffy by the time she walks into the green kitchen — the one with the green tile splashback and white cabinets and a fridge like the one that lad hides in in those American movies Rory made her watch.

She's thinking about tea and the fact that her stomach doesn’t hurt much this morning (which is a nice surprise) and that coil she needs to replace underneath the pool instead of just taping it back up every time. She’s mumbling to herself about the coil, head down and looking at the floor, on a mission for some  _ good  _ tea that won’t make her sick for some reason, and runs straight into Yaz, knocking the mug right out of her hand.

“Doctor!” Yaz yells as the mug falls towards the ground, hot tea splashing over the rim. It shatters on impact and they both jump back, trying to keep out of the way of the splashback.

The entire thing happens in less than two seconds and the Doctor looks up, apology dying on her tongue when she sees Yaz staring at her with a concerned look on her face.

“Are you alright?” Yaz asks, brows furrowed.

And it’s not the concern that has the Doctor flustered (she’s used to her companions being concerned — Yaz especially), it’s the way her hair is tied up, curly and messy, with pieces falling out of the hair tie and framing her face. She’s not wearing her normal day clothes which means these are her night clothes — her sleeping clothes. The clothes she sleeps in, next to Bill, in their bed in their room in the Doctor’s tardis. It’s a plain t-shirt which looks a bit big for her slender frame and hangs low off one shoulder, and a pair of cotton shorts that look soft enough to touch (she  _ wants  _ to touch —)

The Doctor immediately grabs the towel hanging over one of the green plastic chairs and kneels down, the knee of her pants getting wet with tea. “Sorry, Yaz. Didn’t see ya’ there,” she mumbles and wipes at the mess, picking up a piece of glass with her bare hand.

“Stop, you’re gonna hurt yourself,” Yaz says and she’s suddenly kneeling as well and her hands are reaching for the glass and the Doctor jerks her hand away but doesn’t calculate the fact that there’s  _ broken glass _ and she hisses as it slices through her palm.

Yaz raises an eyebrow but doesn’t say  _ I told you so  _ (even though she did) and the Doctor figures that’s one of the things she loves about her — loves _ about  _ her _ ,  _ not  _ loves her. _ There’s a Difference, and she knows the difference, and Yaz knows the difference, and the Doctor is really  _ really _ glad no one can read her mind right now.

“Let me,” Yaz says calmly, holding the Doctor’s hand still by the wrist and pressing the clean end of the tea towel against the cut now bleeding pretty nicely. “Hold that there.” Yaz picks up the rest of the glass and throws it into the bin while the Doctor kneels in tea and holds the towel against her bleeding hand and can’t make her stupid, dumb body do anything but look up at her. Yaz wipes up the rest of the spilled tea, nudging the Doctor to move so she can wipe underneath her knee, then she hangs the towel over the middle of the sink and nods towards the door.

“C’mon, I think there’s a first aid kit in my bedroom.”

Her bedroom. The bedroom she shares with Bill, where they both sleep. The bedroom where they sleep and get ready in the morning and peel off swamp smelling clothes at night and where they probably do  _ other activities  _ —

Yaz is already gone from the doorway and the Doctor stumbles to catch up, her brains telling her there are a million different first aid kits in the ship and the one Yaz is choosing is in her (their) bedroom.

Yaz leads them down a light blue hall that the Doctor doesn’t remember being there yesterday (but it must’ve been if this is their bedroom) and stops at a solid oak door. “I hope she’s awake,” Yaz jokes before opening the door quietly.

The room smells like her — no, it smells like Bill —  _ no _ , she doesn’t know what either of them smell like because that’s a  _ weird  _ thing to know, right? It smells like nothing. She decides that the room smells like nothing as she follows Yaz in. There’s a person sized lump on the bed that stirs when Yaz walks past and towards the bathroom door at the other end of the room.

Yaz nods to the end of the bed on the side that isn’t occupied by the person shaped lump ( _ Bill,  _ her brains scream at her, and that she ignores) and the Doctor sits down, the towel and her hand held to her lap like a child waiting for their parent to fix a skinned knee.

“Did y’get my tea?” Bill mumbles, rolling over and sticking her head out of the blanket. She blinks twice, furrowing her brows when she sees the Doctor staring back at her. “Oh, you’re not Yaz.”

“Do you know where the first aid kit is?” Yaz calls from the bathroom, opening and closing a cabinet door.

“Top shelf,” Bill calls back, and then she’s scooting up in bed and stretching her arms out,  _ and then  _ she’s  _ crawling  _ to the other side _ (Yaz’s side) _ until she’s on her knees next to the Doctor and she can feel the warmth of Bill’s skin radiating off her. “What did you do this time?” she asks, pulling the Doctor’s hand from her lap and taking the towel off the cut. It’s stopped bleeding (for the most part) and the Doctor grits her teeth as Bill looks at it in the light, bringing her face close. “Not that deep, should be fine.”

“Always fine, me. A few scratches come with the territory,” the Doctor says and her voice sounds far too chipper even to her own ears. She’s very much ignoring the smell of Bill next to her and the way the t-shirt she wears looks just as soft as the shorts Yaz wears.

Bill holds her wrist in a loose grip, her thumb rubbing softly over where her pulses beat, and then she says, “Don’t worry, Yaz is great with her hands. She’ll get you fixed right up.”

The Doctor chokes. Honest to god  _ chokes  _ on air (bypass system be damned, apparently) and starts coughing as Bill lets go and sits back on her heels, smirk set firmly on her face.

“What did you say to her?” Yaz asks, exiting the bathroom with a metal biscuit tin in her hands. She sets it down on the other side of the Doctor and pulls a rolling stool towards her, nudging her knees until they part easily and she moves closer.

“I didn’t say anything that weren’t true,” Bill defends and the Doctor  _ finally  _ stops coughing.

She’s very disappointed when Yaz opens the tin and there are medical supplies in there instead of biscuits (where did the biscuits go?), and then Yaz pulls her hand until it’s resting on her knee, looking down at the cut for a second before pulling out a bottle of liquid and a large bandage.

“Can you get me a towel?” Yaz asks Bill who nods and climbs off the bed, picking one from the hamper at random.

“This?”

Yaz looks up and her cheeks flush, then she shakes her head. “No, that’s the one we used when I —”

“Oh yeah, shit. Sorry. Don’t want that one,” Bill says, dropping it back in the hamper and moving to the bathroom.

“What’s on that towel?” the Doctor blurts.

Yaz avoids eye contact and busies herself with opening the bottle. “Not important,” she says and takes the clean towel handed to her from behind. Bill sits back down next to the Doctor and her bare thigh is touching the Doctor’s pants, her skin still warm from sleep and seeping through the fabric. Yaz lays the towel over her lap and pulls the Doctor’s hand back on it, laying it palm up.

“This is probably gonna sting,” Yaz says, eyes flicking up to her face.

The Doctor nods. “I’m ready,” she lies. Okay, well, she  _ is  _ ready, and it really doesn’t hurt  _ that much  _ when Yaz pours the liquid over her palm, but then Bill puts a hand on the small of her back and the Doctor sucks in a sharp breath and Yaz must mistake that for pain as she gives her a slight grimace, keeping a strong grip on her wrist to keep her hand in place.

“I tried to warn you,” Yaz says, putting the cap back on the bottle. “Can you get that?” she asks and the Doctor thinks for a minute she’s talking to her but then Bill moves, reaching around the Doctor’s back and picking up the bandage. “Just there, and some ointment too,” Yaz says but Bill is already using the small tube and spreading some on the bandage, and their nonverbal communication is actually quite impressive, rivaling telepathy, she’d say.

They wait for her hand to dry before Bill places the bandage on her palm gently, Yaz holding her wrist to keep her still. Bill takes her time pressing down on it to make sure every part of it sticks. “Don’t want you gettin’ an infection — already thought you’d died once before, don’t need you doin’ it again.”

“I’m  _ pretty sure  _ I told you I’d live through it,” the Doctor insists.

“Yeah, you didn’t tell me you’d end up like this, though,” Bill quips, looking up at her, fingers still pressing into the edge of the bandage. They’re so close to her actual skin and the Doctor doesn’t really know what to do with that, how to handle both of them touching her at the same time.

Still, she furrows her brows. “Like what?”

Bill laughs, pulling her hand back and motioning to the Doctor up and down. “A blonde milf? I were expectin’ another old guy, if I’m bein’ honest.”

“I  _ am  _ old,” the Doctor insists and then Yaz is letting go of her hand and suddenly her skin is a lot colder with both of them moving away from her.

“You don’t lookit,” Yaz says, crumpling up the bandage wrapper and tossing it in the bin at the side of their bed. “She’s right, though.”

The Doctor doesn’t know what to say to that — she’s not good with communication and especially with Yaz  _ and  _ Bill at the same time. Her head gets all funny and she feels like her skin is charged and she can never think of appropriate responses and usually ends up blurting out the first thing that comes to mind, which at this point is, “Well, I guess I just figured this body, since you’re a lesbian an’ all.”

There’s silence. Dead silence. The kind of silence that  _ never  _ happens in the tardis. She’s pretty sure even the tardis is silent, not even the familiar hum that usually happens. Bill raises her brows, leaning back on her hand. Yaz stops packing up the first aid kit, hands still on the metal tin in her lap. The Doctor’s hearts beat hard against her chest.

“You comin’ on to me?” Bill asks, amusement in her voice.

The Doctor’s cheeks flush (she can  _ feel  _ it, curse this body) and she shakes her head immediately. “No! No, sorry, that came out wrong —”

“Yeah, I’m sure,” Bill says and she looks to Yaz for barely a second but there’s  _ something  _ there, something they’re communicating that the Doctor doesn’t understand, and suddenly her stomach hurts again (probably the lack of tea).

The Doctor looks between the two women who are now staring at her again and she feels her cheeks flush even  _ more,  _ the heat making its way down her neck, and she jumps from the bed. Yaz moves back on the stool and the Doctor clumsily maneuvers herself around the edge of the bed, walking backwards towards the door. “Yeah, right, well —” She bumps into the edge of a bookshelf and hears things rattle but nothing falls and she keeps walking. “Thanks for the bandage. Ryan and Graham are probably up by now, think I should go see. Busy day ahead of us!” she says excitedly and in what she hopes is a normal volume before reaching behind her and turning the knob, opening the door and practically falling out of the room.

* * *

“Right, boys, you go that way, Bill and Yaz, you go that way, I’ll try down the middle,” the Doctor says with a firm nod of her head. “Whoever gets to the middle gets to choose where we go next.”

“Are you sure these pumpkins aren’t gonna eat us?” Graham asks, warily eyeing a pumpkin crawling away from them. The Jack-o-lantern face carved into it is a big smile with missing teeth and it has arms sprouted from each side. The Doctor figured they could have a fun day off since they’ve been practically (and literally) running for their lives on an almost daily basis for the past week and all of them look quite exhausted.

“Of course not! Would I ever put you in harms way, Graham?”

“Every single day,” Graham deadpans. Yaz snorts behind her. Bill covers her mouth with her hand.

“C’mon, gramps,” Ryan says, using the nickname the rest of the fam has given Graham. “I wanna go to New York and I’m not lettin’ Bill pick the next trip.”

“Oi, I pick great places to go. You weren’t complainin’ when we got those massages,” Bill argues to Ryan’s back. Ryan shakes his head and steps into the path on the left, large stalks of corn reaching above his head.

The Doctor turns to the two women and her smile only falters a little when she sees Bill’s hand in the back pocket of Yaz’s jeans, holding her close to her side. The Doctor brings the smile back up on her face as bright as ever and nods. “Right, I’ll go through the middle, you two take the right.”

“How do we know you won’t cheat and just go through the corn?” Bill says.

“Or use your sonic to find y’way,” Yaz adds.

The Doctor feigns shock (but that’s definitely exactly what she was going to do, because she really wants to take them to an active volcano and none of the four have agreed yet) and shakes her head. “I would  _ never  _ cheat.”

Bill laughs and the movement causes Yaz to be pulled a bit closer, leaning against her comfortably. “You definitely would, mate. I’ve known you for years.”

The Doctor shakes her head again, taking a step back towards the middle path into the corn. “I won’t cheat, swear it.” She might cheat, it’s still an option. She  _ really  _ wants to see that volcano from the inside.

Yaz and Bill share a look, then Yaz shrugs and Bill takes her hand out of her pocket and the Doctor’s stomach ache eases just a bit (probably because of the fresh air — fresh air does wonders for the body). “Right, we’ll see you when you get to the middle,” Bill says, taking Yaz by the hand and leading her to the path on the right.

“Not if I see you first!” the Doctor calls after them and then wants to hit herself because that was a weird thing to say, right? Do people say that? She shakes the fog from her mind and steps onto the path surrounded by corn, stepping around the pumpkin dragging itself in front of her.

* * *

So, she’s lost.

Hopelessly lost. So lost her sonic doesn’t even know where she is or how to get to where she wants to be and she keeps coming back to the  _ same  _ dead end with a sentient pumpkin just sitting there, over and over again, and she’s not really sure what to make of it. The pumpkin snaps at her hand when she goes to scan it so she turns around and tries going back the other way, but it brings her back to the same dead end  _ again _ and the corn is so tall, much taller than this body is, and she can’t even see over it when she jumps.

It’s only when she gets to the dead end for the 45th time (she’s counted) that she realizes another pumpkin has been following behind her and has now cornered her in. The Doctor looks between them and they both look kind of angry, large malicious grins carved into their faces with sharp points that look like teeth.

So maybe going off on her own wasn’t the best idea.

“Right, how’s everyone's afternoon?” she asks, looking between them with the best grin she can muster even though she’s pretty sure nothing good can come from this. Worst comes to worst she’s  _ pretty sure  _ she can fight off two pumpkins that try to eat her, right? She’s never had to fight a pumpkin and she’s not really one to fight anyways but with her sonic not working and the only thing at her disposal being  _ corn,  _ she doesn’t have much of a choice, right?

She wishes Yaz were here — she’d use her police training or something. Or Bill would have an idea probably better than what her brains can come up with in this panicked state. She hopes Ryan and Graham are okay (though she’s seen the video games Ryan plays so she’s not too worried).

The pumpkin on her right snaps and she backs up a step, gripping her sonic a little tighter. “Not one for talkin’, I respect that. I’m quite a talker so I’ll do it for the both of us if that’s alright,” she rambles. The pumpkin on her left pulls itself closer by its green arms and the Doctor feels corn brush against her back, tickling her neck. “Do they feed you here? Is that —” the realization dawns on her and she clicks her mouth shut. “Oh.”

She’s the food. She and her friends are the food. She’s accidentally brought them to the hunting ground of these carnivorous pumpkins. Brilliant.

“Well, I’m gonna have to say, I wouldn’t make a great meal. Don’t think I’ll taste too good —” The pumpkin on the left is only a few feet away now and the one on the right has started dragging itself across the dirt towards her, mouth open. “— I don’t put great things in this body, mostly rocks and soil and biscuits, so I  _ definitely _ won’t taste good —” The pumpkin on her right snaps at her and she jumps a bit, now pressing herself against the corn.

She’s getting ready to do something like kick at them or try and shove corn stalks into their mouths when a hand grabs the back of her coat and pulls hard, causing her to stumble backwards and into the dense field of corn. She hears one of the pumpkins snap and then she’s pulled out the other side and falls into a firm body pressed against her back. Bill stares at her from the front and when she looks up Yaz is there, face upside down as she holds the Doctor awkwardly in her arms ( _ strong arms,  _ one of the Doctor’s brain thinks. Strong arms and warm skin pressed against her and —)

The Doctor straightens up and brushes off her coat, giving them both a large grin. “Hiya! Fancy meetin’ you here.”

Bill raises a brow. Yaz says, “You were about to be  _ eaten _ .”

“Right, but —”

“You could’ve warned us the pumpkins were carnivorous,” Bill says.

“I didn’t know —”

“If you had gotten eaten how would we have gotten home?” Yaz asks, crossing her arms.

“I wouldn’t have gotten  _ eaten _ —” the Doctor defends.

“Y’almost did, mate!” Bill interrupts, and there’s something in her voice that the Doctor doesn’t quite know what to do with — fear, like actual, genuine fear. But not fear for herself, fear for the Doctor.

Yaz touches her arm, looking over at her with a soft expression. “Bill,” she says quietly, moving her hand to wrap a finger around her wrist. Bill looks like she visibly calms at the touch, eyes closing for a brief second before she looks back at the Doctor.

“You know the way out?” Bill asks.

That is something the Doctor can do — she can get them out! She points her sonic to the right, then the left, then reads the screen and points to the left. “That way! Should lead us back to Ryan and Graham, I put trackers in their shoes months ago.”

“Good call. Someone needs to do that with yours,” Yaz quips.

“Oi!”

* * *

They collect Ryan and Graham (who are being cornered, but Ryan’s putting up a pretty good fight, his trainers soiled with pumpkin) and stumble out of the entrance of the corn maze. For their part, her companions don’t give her too much of a fuss about accidentally being taken to a feeding ground of carnivorous pumpkins, and she’s grateful for that. Ryan does tell her she owes him new trainers, but that’s fair (she lit his last pair on fire by accident, so really she owes him  _ two  _ pair, but who’s counting).

When they get back to the tardis, the Doctor holds the door open for her companions to enter first, Ryan and Graham taking the lead.

“Sorry guys, really didn't know they’d try and eat us,” she says.

Graham claps her on the shoulder on his way past. “‘S alright, Doc. We know ya didn’t mean anything by it. Think a nice shower and sleep will do us all good.”

The Doctor gives him a weak smile as he goes through the doors. Yaz and Bill stand with their arms crossed, both looking at her with almost the same expression (is it that thing that happens to couples when they’ve been together a long time and start to look like each other?).

“No more splittin’ up,” Yaz says.

“Or takin’ us places where things are gonna  _ eat  _ us,” Bill adds. 

That part seriously wasn’t her fault! The tardis’ translation must’ve been off — that’s the only explanation. She’s positive the screen said “maze” and not “feeding ground”. Well, almost positive. Like 60% positive.

She doesn’t say anything and it’s Yaz that moves first, taking a step into the tardis and stopping in front of her. “We were worried, yeah?” she says, reaching out and smoothing over the front of the Doctor’s grey coat with her palm. The Doctor can practically feel the way her eyes flick over her form before dragging back up to her eyes, and she says softly, “Dunno what we’d do without you.”

“Have a bloody boring life,” Bill says behind her, breaking the tension that had settled and tapping Yaz on the backside with a soft smack. “And probably muscles that don’t ache every single night from running, or crouching —”

“Or that time she made us hang from the ceiling in that warehouse,” Yaz adds.

The Doctor follows them in and the door shuts behind her. “That weren’t my fault,” she says, because it  _ wasn’t.  _ How was she supposed to know the floor would turn to molten lava underneath them? It’s a miracle Ryan didn’t lose more than just his shoe (okay, so if they’re still counting trainers she owes him it really would be like two and a half pair, three at a stretch).

“Right, and the time we almost fell off that cliff also wasn’t your fault?” Bill asks, leaning back against the console.

The Doctor frowns. “It disappeared underneath us! It looked  _ very  _ realistic when we were climbing.”

“Maybe you’re just bad at picking destinations,” Yaz says from her seat on the hexagonal stairs.

“Oi! I'm great at picking destinations. Remember the time I took you all rainbathing in the upward tropics of Kinstarno? Nothin’ bad happened then!”

“You were still breakin’ in the new body,” Bill says. “Didn’t have time to get into trouble then.”

“I don’t get into trouble now!” the Doctor defends. She’s starting to feel ganged up on, between Yaz and Bill both giving her trouble for maybe possibly taking them to sort of dangerous places  _ a few times. _ Once or twice.

“Remember the time she got locked up and we had to break her out of that little cage they’d kept her in? Said she were a dangerous pet,” Bill laughs, looking at Yaz.

“What about when she deeply insulted that queen of the — what was the name —”

“Xicrox,” the Doctor adds helpfully, even though they’re talking  _ about her  _ (making fun of her is more like it). She starts going through the motions of moving the tardis back to the time vortex so the humans can have a quick couple hours sleep before she drops them off back at home, exactly thirty minutes later than she’d picked them up.

“Oi, don’t be poutin’ on us.” Bill nudges her with her elbow. “You know we like traveling with you, even if you do almost get us killed on a daily basis.”

“It’s all part of the fun,” Yaz says, beside her suddenly. The Doctor hadn’t seen her move and her brains are catching up with how close both of them are, and how Bill’s hand is on her arm and rubbing small circles with her thumb and how Yaz looks over at her with a soft expression, lip nervously pulled between her teeth. “Don’t think we’d trade it for the world, honestly.”

The Doctor moves her hand and accidentally flips a switch that causes the tardis to shudder and jolt violently (she very much did not appreciate whatever switch the Doctor had flipped). All three women are thrown from their feet and the Doctor is the first one back up, moving quickly around the console and trying to get her ship back on track.

* * *

The tardis is messing with her, she’s sure of it. It’s sent her to  _ four  _ separate kitchens and each one has empty cabinets, not a teabag in sight. Not even a loose leaf. There aren’t any biscuits and when she even  _ looks  _ for a kettle the cabinets suddenly stop opening and she just leaves, muttering under her breath about ship sentience. She’s not really sure  _ why  _ it’s messing with her, she just knows it’s happening, and she’s quite annoyed at this point. She really just wants a cup of tea, that's it. That’s all she wants. A cup of tea and maybe a few biscuits so she can refill the dispenser on the console and then she’ll get to work on that coil (for real this time, no tape holding it together).

The Doctor turns the corner quickly, walking fast through the hall and towards what she’s pretty sure is the light blue kitchen, though she honestly has no idea. Her hands are stuffed into the pockets of her trousers and her braces are swinging freely past her hips and her boots make a soft scuffling against the floor as she walks. The hum of the tardis is pleasant in the background and she chews on her bottom lip as she rounds another corner, the doorway of the blue kitchen in sight on the right side.

_“Fuck,”_ someone says from the kitchen and the Doctor furrows her brows, ears perking up. Is someone hurt? It sounded a bit like Yaz but not really like any time _the_ _Doctor_ has heard Yaz. She hears a loud clatter that sounds like a chair toppling over and her hearts speed up — _is Yaz hurt?_

She walks a bit faster towards the kitchen and has her sonic in her hand, ready to figure out whatever is wrong with Yaz, when she rounds the edge of the doorway and stops in her tracks.

The chair lay sideways on the floor, but Yaz isn’t laying next to it hurt or bleeding out or anything. Instead she’s pushed against the counter, hands gripping the stone countertop on either side of her hips, head tilted back and eyes closed.  _ Bill  _ is the one pushing her against the counter and her hand —

Oh god.

The Doctor drops her sonic.

It clatters loudly to the floor and Yaz’s eyes shoot open, then Bill turns her head to see her standing there in the doorway and suddenly it’s  _ very  _ hot in this kitchen.

“Sorry!” the Doctor yells, immediately covering her eyes with her hand. She knows what they were doing ( _ are  _ doing), she’s not an idiot. “Sorry, I came for —” she backs up and bumps into the wall, jostling the hand covering her eyes. “I came for tea and the tardis wouldn’t let me into the other kitchens and —” She moves to the left and steps back again through the doorway. “Sorry, I’ll go, sorry.” The Doctor turns on her heel, face flushed as hot as it could be.

She doesn’t even realize she forgot her sonic until she’s in the console room, and by then she just accepts she’ll be spending the night without it.

* * *

_ Movie night.  _ They decide to let Ryan pick the movie (because they don’t let the Doctor choose movies anymore, claiming she’s a terrible movie picker when she is in fact a fantastic movie picker) and he chooses a scary movie the Doctor herself hasn’t even seen.

“C’mon, it’ll be great. You guys will love it,” Ryan says, standing up from the stairs and dusting off his pants. “I’ll meet you in the movie room in ten.”

“Are we really letting him choose the movie for us?” Bill asks. She’s leaning back between Yaz’s legs and Yaz has her wrist resting on her knee, toying with the neck of Bill’s t-shirt with one finger, the other hand holding her phone and scrolling through it.

“Last time you watched a scary movie you didn’t sleep for three weeks,” Yaz notes, still staring at her phone but obviously talking to the Doctor.

“I don’t sleep anyways! Don’t need as much of it like your human bodies do,” the Doctor defends.

“Oi, watch how you talk about humans. Yaz here will beat you up,” Bill says.

“She would  _ never _ .”

Yaz looks up from her phone with a smirk and a raise of her brow. “I could, if y’actin’ up. It might put you in your place.”

The words send what the Doctor can only describe as  _ heat  _ somewhere below the waist of her trousers — she doesn’t remember it feeling like that when she were a man. The only thoughts racing through her brains are how exactly Yaz might put her in her place and she flushes, she can  _ feel  _ the heat starting at her neck and working its way up and she turns to the console quickly, looking down and pressing buttons that don’t actually do anything in the sequence she presses them.

Bill laughs behind her. “Think she’s scared of you, Yaz,” she quips and both women stand from the stairs. “Right, don’t get distracted or we’ll have to drag you into the movie room.”

“I won’t get  _ distracted,” _ the Doctor mumbles.

Yaz scoffs behind her. “Yeah, right. I’m letting Bill drag you from whatever you’re tinkerin’ with in ten minutes time,” she says, moving towards the hall. Bill follows behind her and then the Doctor is left in the console room with nothing to do for ten minutes except think about Yaz and Bill and the way they softly touch each other, like they’re not even aware of it, like they’ve got all the time in the world together and their lives aren’t short (being made even shorter by traveling with the Doctor) and  _ wow, lighten up a bit, Doctor. _

She decides to fix the wobbly knob on the right side of the console because it’s been bothering her for a week and she hasn’t had much time to really think about it (and she doesn’t use that knob a ton anyways). She lays on the ground underneath the console, wires pulled out and dangling down as she tries to rewire the knob after changing it out with a new one that’s not wobbly at all, a perfect fit.

Hands wrap around her ankles and swiftly pull her across the floor. Her shirts get caught on the floor in the process and untuck themselves, bunching up over her ribs as Bill stares down at her with a raised brow.

“Ten minutes, yeah?”

The Doctor scrunches her face. Surely it couldn’t have been ten minutes already. She’s great with time. She would know if it’s been ten minutes. “Has it been that long?”

“We’ve been waiting for twenty. You’re lucky I didn’t let Yaz come in here and drag you out. She’d have pulled you along by the scruff of your neck.”

Her face flushes. She doesn’t know  _ why  _ her face flushes, or why the thought of Yaz manhandling her brings such a physical reaction, but it must be something to do with how she’s laying on the floor or how hot the temperature in the tardis is (she needs to fix that).

“Right! Movie night, brilliant. Got it,” the Doctor says, scrambling up from the floor and standing in front of Bill with a completely normal looking grin. “What movie are we watchin?”

Bill’s eyes trail down the Doctor’s form and she raises a brow when they land on her stomach. “Your shirts are untucked.”

The Doctor looks down. “Oh.” They sure are. When had they gotten that way? Did she do that? Why does it always feel like time moves differently when she talks to Bill (or Yaz) — like things happen and she misses them and then other things happen that seem unrelated but aren’t?

Bill reaches forward and untucks both shirts, separating them at the bottom hem before tucking the white one in herself. Her hand lays flat against her stomach and slides down underneath the waistband of her culottes, starting at the front and working her way around until she switches hands to do the other side. The Doctor feels heat practically flood her body but she can’t make herself move. She’s never been one to be shocked still; always moving, always fidgeting, always doing  _ something _ , but around Bill she feels — well, she doesn’t know exactly  _ what  _ she feels, all she knows is that she’s practically helpless to whatever she says/wants.

Bill repeats the process with the blue t-shirt (her favorite, she’d told the Doctor once, and also why the Doctor wears it most often), going a bit slower than the first time. Her palm is warm when it comes to rest over her stomach and the Doctor feels those muscles tense involuntarily, breath catching in her throat as Bill’s hand doesn’t move.

“Feels like you work out — got some tense muscles there,” Bill says, pressing lightly on her stomach.

Her voice absolutely does not stutter the first word, that’s ridiculous and also impossible. The Doctor doesn’t get  _ flustered _ . “N-Never worked out a day in me life.”

Bill laughs then and it floods the Doctor’s body with a different kind of warmth, a sort of pride (she loves making her laugh).

“Right. Can’t imagine you’d have a lot of use for it.” Bill pulls her hand from her pants, the moment broken. “C’mon. Yaz is gonna have my ass for taking so long.”

* * *

“Took you long enough, thought you’d got lost,” Ryan says from the popcorn machine when they walk into the movie room (the one near the pool, not the blue pool but the yellow and orange one, with the lights). The Doctor trails behind Bill who flops down on one end of a plush couch, Yaz already curled up on the other end with her legs tucked underneath her and a blanket at her side.

“Had to drag her out from under the console,” Bill says. “Thought she’d never leave.”

It’s very clear with the quick calculations the Doctor does in her head that there aren’t enough seats for them all — or, well, there  _ are, _ but the only other seat is on the couch with Yaz and Bill ( _ between  _ Yaz and Bill).

Yaz looks up from her phone. “What are you doing standin’ around? Sit down.” And really, she has no choice but to sit between the two women.

It’s not a big couch — it’s barely even a loveseat — and when she gets settled between them she can feel Bill’s thigh pressing against her own on one side and the bottom of Yaz’s feet on the other. Ryan hands Bill a bowl of popcorn and she plops it on the Doctor’s lap, taking a few pieces for herself. The heat seeps from the bowl into her lap and hands as she sits there, almost stiff as a board between the two women. Yaz reaches over and takes a few pieces and it makes her shoulder press against the Doctor’s and she doesn’t pull back, just resituating herself so her legs fall the other way, knees almost resting in the Doctor’s lap.

It’s a lot, and Ryan and Graham don’t seem to notice how hot the tardis has made the room suddenly and really, she needs to figure that out. There must be something off with the HVAC system because it is definitely hotter now than it was a few minutes ago.

“Do you want this?” Yaz asks, picking up the blanket.

The Doctor almost thinks she’s talking to her until Bill says from the other side, “Oh, yes please,” and Bill moves her hands and the bowl of popcorn so Yaz can lay the blanket over their laps (really, do they not notice how hot it is?). In the act of getting the blanket settled, Bill’s arm moves to rest on the back of the couch, almost touching the Doctor’s shoulders but not quite. The Doctor looks over and sees her hand is playing with the hem of Yaz’s shirt, tugging at the collar and smoothing over her skin absentmindedly. Yaz doesn’t even look like she notices.

Ryan gets the movie started, handing Graham his own bowl of popcorn on the recliner almost directly in front of the couch, on the lower platform of the room. Ryan flops down on the large bean bag chair next to it and watches the screen excitedly as the opening credits start. “This movie is amazin’. Thought I were gonna soil myself in the theater,” he says over his shoulder to the three women.

“Great,” Bill mutters next to the Doctor. She can feel every breath Bill takes, body fully pressed against the Doctor’s side now. “Hope you don’t get nightmares this time.”

“I won’t. I’ve been practicin’,” the Doctor whispers back.

Bill smiles when she looks over at her. “Practicing watching scary movies?”

“You two gonna talk the entire movie?” Yaz hisses, voice practically in her ear. It makes the Doctor jump a bit and Bill snorts.

“If you’re that jumpy just from Yaz, you might not survive this movie,” Bill whispers in her other ear.

If the Doctor thought just having them on either side of her was a lot to handle, then having both of them whisper in her ear during the movie is even worse. At some point the empty popcorn bowl gets discarded on the floor and Yaz moves her knees further onto the Doctor’s lap, practically curling into her side and laying a warm hand on her thigh. Bill’s hand that had previously been playing with the top of Yaz’s shirt now lightly scratches the back of the Doctor’s neck, dipping underneath the hem of her shirts periodically.

The Doctor sits like stone between them, trying to pay attention to the movie but things keep jumping out and sometimes Yaz’s hand tightens on her thigh at a scary part and sometimes Bill leans over to whisper comments in her ear and by the end of it her hearts are racing so fast she feels a bit faint. As soon as the lights turn on she jumps from the couch, jostling Yaz’s legs off her lap in one move.

“Right, brilliant, great movie, thanks Ryan,” she says, voice not at all high pitched. She’s a bit sweaty and her hearts are still racing and there’s a heat that has firmly pooled in her lower stomach that probably just means she has to pee, so she says that (the pee part, not the other stuff) before darting out of the room and walking briskly down the hall. It’s not until she gets to the console room that she feels she can finally _ breathe. _

* * *

Yaz sits down heavily on the hexagonal step next to the Doctor. She’s changed from the clothes she’d been in during their trip earlier and she smells like sweet body soap and green apple shampoo. She’s wearing a pair of sweats and a pullover sweater that the Doctor is pretty sure is Bill’s, but honestly has no idea considering they swap clothes almost constantly.

“Thought you’d be with Bill,” the Doctor says quietly, staring down at the floor in front of them. She’d landed in Bristol shortly after dropping the boys off in Sheffield and assumed Yaz had left with Bill, leaving her alone for the night (until lunchtime tomorrow, no cheats — Bill had said that last part with a pointed glance at the console).

“Nah, she wanted to sleep a bit anyways. I’m too worked up for that right now.”

The Doctor nods but she can’t bring herself to say much more. The screaming still plays over and over in her brains and honestly, at this point in her long life she should be used to it, right? Used to pain and heartache and destruction — but she’s  _ not _ . She’s just not. (She doesn’t think she ever will be.) She closes her eyes to try and quiet it but it only makes it worse, only adds pictures of burning buildings and rubble to the cacophony of sound invading her ears.

It  _ hurts _ .

“You alright?” Yaz asks, voice barely above a whisper even though they’re alone in the tardis.

“Yep, right as rain, me,” the Doctor answers automatically. It’s just reflex at this point, to lie to her companions. They don’t deserve to hold the weight she does.

A hand touches hers and suddenly she realizes she’s gripping the edge of the stair so hard her fingers ache. She relaxes under Yaz’s touch though (she always does). She feels the fight leave her body, the pain turning to a dull ache and the screaming starting to quiet in her brains like Yaz alone is enough to dampen the sound.

“You don’t have to be, you know.”

The Doctor opens her eyes and barks out a short laugh that dies on her tongue almost as soon as it leaves her mouth. It feels harsh  _ (she  _ feels harsh) but she’s far too tired and worn out from the days spent on that planet to even apologize for it.

Yaz’s thumb rubs softly over her knuckles — Yaz, always so gentle with her, like she’s something that can be broken  _ (like she’s something worth protecting).  _ She once told the Doctor she was the best person she’s ever met, and on days like this the Doctor wonders if that still rings true, if she still feels that way.

And she’s  _ so tired _ now. Tired of running and saving and failing. Tired on an almost cosmic level, and with Yaz she doesn’t think she can keep her walls up, keep up that guard that she puts up with every other companion (except, probably, Bill). She’s tired to her bones, down to the molecule, and she wishes she could switch off her brains, if only for a minute, just for some peace and quiet from the racing of her thoughts.

“I can still hear them, Yaz,” she says quietly, looking over at her. Yaz nods, like she understands (and maybe she does — maybe she still hears them too, and maybe she won’t ever forget them until the day she dies, and maybe just being with the Doctor and seeing what she’s seeing is the worst fate anyone could ever succumb to.)

(And maybe she knows all that, and still doesn’t leave.)

And honestly, being a Time Lord, you’d think she’d have a better grasp on time and the order in which events play out, but she has no idea who moves first. It could be her, or it could be Yaz, or it could be both of them, but it doesn’t matter much when their lips touch and suddenly the sound in her head cuts off, replaced by blessed silence. It’s tentative at first, just the barest press of lips against each other until Yaz moves her hand to grip the front of her coat. The Doctor’s hand cups Yaz’s cheek, thumb stroking impossibly soft skin she’s only ever let herself think about in snippets here and there, and when Yaz’s tongue licks at her bottom lip she opens her mouth willingly, letting herself get lost in the silence of her brains and wet heat of Yaz’s mouth.

It’s the sound that pulls her out of it — she has no idea if it’s from Yaz or herself, but it’s loud enough to ground her, to remind her  _ where  _ she is and  _ what  _ she’s doing and with  _ whom _ , and she pulls away with a start, hands pushing her away from Yaz and heels digging into the floor until her back hits the metal of the railing.

Oh no.

Sound rushes back to her ears; the sound of the tardis, the memories from today, memories from another time, from another life, from other bodies, they all flood her brains and the only thing she can really grasp onto is  _ Bill.  _

_ Oh no. _

“I’m sorry,” the Doctor says, chest still heaving and skin feeling like she’s been electrified. “I’m sorry Yaz, I shouldn’t’ve —” she stops and licks her lips and  _ that  _ was a bad idea because they’re wet and taste like Yaz and they  _ shouldn’t  _ taste like Yaz because she has a  _ girlfriend  _ who is the Doctor’s other companion and they’re happy together and they’re  _ BillandYaz. _

“I’m sorry,” she repeats, standing quickly from the stairs and taking them two at a time until she’s safely in the hallway, away from the tension in the air and the look on Yaz’s face and the way she’d pulled her close by her coat and the idea that she might’ve just messed up something for her companions that she can’t possibly fix.

* * *

She doesn’t know if Yaz tells Bill. She doesn’t ask. She doesn’t  _ want  _ to know. She convinces her brains that it was a fluke, a rush of emotion from the day and conversation and Yaz just  _ being there, _ and so she decides she does not have to obsess over it anymore (except she does, all the time, during every waking minute and even in the few minutes she sleeps a week).

“Do you know how to swim?” Yaz asks, leaning against the wall near the door. She’s got one foot propped on the wall, her jean shorts stretched over her thighs and a loose shirt hanging off her shoulders (it’s Bill’s shirt, the Doctor is pretty sure she’s seen Bill wearing it more than once).

“Course I know how to swim! Or I did, in other bodies. Can’t be too hard, right? Like riding a bike after you’ve grown new legs,” the Doctor responds from further in the closet. She throws clothes over her shoulder haphazardly as she looks for the trunk that houses all her swimwear. She’s pretty sure she saw it over here last time, but that could’ve been in a different closet honestly. She’s really not sure.

“I think that’s a unique experience, mate,” Bill says, stepping out from the changing screen. She’s wearing a piece of fabric that could  _ barely _ be considered a dress. The navy blue fabric brushes the tops of her thighs and hangs low on her shoulders, exposing the two red straps of the swimsuit that dig into her skin just a bit. She’s got a pair of sandals in her hand as she approaches Yaz leaning against the wall.

“Is that mine?” Yaz asks, reaching out when she comes close enough and tugging on the thin dress.

“You weren’t usin’ it,” Bill says, holding onto her shoulder to balance herself as she slips on her sandals.

“Looks better on you anyways,” Yaz replies quietly, biting her lip and giving Bill another once over with her eyes. Her hand comes to rest on Bill’s hip and her thumb strokes small circles over the fabric there, pulling the dress up slightly with the movement.

The Doctor should look away — she’s pretty sure the polite thing to do would be to look away and let them have their private moment — but she can’t. She can’t drag her eyes away from the way Yaz pulls Bill just a bit closer, hand moving to the small of her back, and how Bill smiles at her and says something so quietly that even the Doctor’s impeccable hearing can’t pick it up, and how Yaz breathes a laugh, a soft smile forming on her face, that one dimple now prominent on her cheek. Yaz says something in response and Bill nods, then turns her head suddenly. Her brows raise at the Doctor but she doesn’t mention that she’s quite literally just standing there, staring at them with her mouth slightly open and her tongue darting out to wet her lips.

“You find the shorts yet?” Bill asks, pulling away from Yaz and leaning on the wall next to her. Her hand reaches out and she curls a finger in one of Yaz’s, tugging slightly. The Doctor’s eyes dart back up quickly when her stomach gives a slight twist, that now familiar feeling coming back (maybe it was the tea earlier — she knew it wouldn’t sit right and she drank it anyways).

The Doctor jolts from the spot and turns away quickly, bending over to dig through the pile of clothes to her left, back towards the two women. “Not yet, almost, I think,” she says.

“Think maybe it’s in another closet?” Yaz asks.

“Could be, maybe. I were pretty sure it were this one though.” Like 53% sure. She remembers it being  _ somewhere. _ Her hands fumble around in the pile for a few more seconds before they hit something solid — a chest. “Found it!”

“God, took her long enough,” Bill quips. Yaz snorts. The Doctor frowns.

“It’s not my fault the tardis hides things!” she defends.

“I think you just don’t like cleanin’ up after y’self,” Bill says.

“Ah, waste of time cleanin’ up after myself. I’ll just get it messy again anyways.” The Doctor pulls open the lid of the trunk and inside is all of her swimming costumes. Most are trunks, far too big for her lithe frame now, but near the bottom she finds a pair that will work perfectly,  _ and  _ they’re almost the same color as her pants! She holds them over her head excitedly as she continues to dig around for a shirt. “Got it!”

She foregoes a swim top — she won’t need it, right? The shirt doesn’t have sleeves so it’s not like she needs to take it off to swim and wearing a bikini top doesn’t really seem like something she’d like (she already hates bras with a burning passion and forgoes one most days). The shirt is white with the same rainbow stripe across the chest like her other shirts and she silently thanks the tardis for making her a swimsuit.

When she steps out from the changing screen she holds her hands out in a  _ ta-da _ motion. “What d’ya think? The tardis made it for me.”

“Think it looks like your regular clothes but shorter,” Bill says, eyes trailing up and down her form. They spend a while on the rainbow across her chest before moving backup to her face.

“It looks great,” Yaz says. She laces her and Bill’s fingers together and tugs Bill from the wall. “Are you ready? The boys have been waiting in the console room for almost twenty minutes.”

“Absolutely ready.”

* * *

Ryan and Graham lead the way on the beach, Yaz and Bill behind them, holding hands the entire time. The Doctor trails last, holding a bag full of snacks and a chair over her arm.

“This is gonna be ace. Another quiet trip with the fam!” she chatters excitedly. She’s pretty sure nothing is going to go wrong today — there weren’t any distress signals, she triple checked the screens and translations to make sure she got the right time and place, she even made sure to check the time around this year to make sure nothing would surprise them, and everything was clear. Her companions deserve a quiet trip. After some of the more thrilling trips they’ve been on, a nice, quiet time is well deserved, and she’s quite chuffed to be able to provide that for once.

“I just nope we don’t meet a race of crab people or somethin’,” Graham says from the front. “Wouldn’t be the first time we went to a vacation destination and ended up running for our lives.”

“Oi, that happened  _ one time _ —”

“Three, actually. You’ve tried taking us on quiet vacations three separate times,” Yaz says over her shoulder, giving the Doctor a quick wink. The Doctor stumbles on her feet and rights herself a few seconds later.

“Alright, I see your point. But nothing bad will happen today, promise. I checked everything.”

“You still brought trainers, right?” Yaz asks Bill, loud enough for the Doctor to hear. There’s a slight grin on Yaz’s face as she very obviously teases the Doctor in front of the entire group.

“Course. I’ve traveled with her long enough to know I always need shoes to run in.”

The Doctor feels her face flush (these suns are  _ hot _ ). “Oi!”

“Guys, give her a break. She did take us to see the sunset two weeks ago,” Ryan says. Ryan, her favorite companion, coming to her defence (the other companions are  _ not  _ her favorite anymore).

“The sunset screamed the entire time, Ryan. Like, actually screamed. That were the worst thing I’ve ever had to experience,” Bill says.

“Oh yeah.” Ryan turns and gives the Doctor a shrug. “Sorry, Doctor. Were tryin’ to help.”

“I didn’t know it were a screaming sunset,” the Doctor grumbles under her breath. Bill snorts. Yaz looks like she rolls her eyes (she can tell even by staring at the back of her head).

Eventually they set up their umbrellas and chairs. The Doctor drops the bag of snacks onto the bright white sand and squints up at the suns. “Looks like we’ve got a few hours of sunlight left. But be careful, it’s probably a bit hotter than normal sunlight.”

“Not to worry, Doc. I’m gonna stay under this umbrella the entire time,” Graham says, unfolding his chair in the shade of the umbrella.

“Hey, look.” Ryan points a bit down the beach where a small hut sits, barstools lining the front counter. “Think they’ve got drinks?”

“Only one way to find out,” Graham says. “Doc, we’re gonna head over there and check it out. You lot want anything?”

“We’re good, thanks,” Yaz says, unfolding her and Bill’s chairs underneath their umbrella.

“Don’t drink anything blue!” the Doctor yells at their retreating forms. Ryan puts a thumbs up and she turns back to the two women, putting her hands on her hips. “Right! Who wants to go for a swim?”

Bill raises a brow. “You can’t swim like that.”

The Doctor looks down at her clothes. She’s wearing the proper swim attire — she even checked before she went hunting for it. She’s gotta take off her boots but that’s all that’s left.

“Am I not —”

“You’ll fry like an egg out there, mate. Your skin isn’t exactly the darkest.”

_ Oh.  _ Right, her skin. The suns. She forgot about sunburns. She’s not even sure she can get sunburnt. She’s pretty sure yes, because it’s an injury like any other, but she hasn’t been swimming at a beach in so long she’d forgotten what it’s like.

“Right. Do we have any sun cream?”

Yaz pulls a bottle from the snack bag (what else is she keeping in there besides the mountain of snacks the Doctor had insisted on bringing?). “Got some for you. Graham put his on in the tardis.”

“Brilliant,” the Doctor says, holding her hand out for the bottle. She’s planning on just lathering some on the important bits like her nose and shoulders and maybe her neck so she can get out into the water, but Yaz pulls the bottle back.

“No way, you’ll definitely put it on sloppily and then you’ll tan unevenly,” she says, moving around to the front of the Doctor. “Bill, if you get her arms I’ll do her legs.”

“Back, too?” Bill asks, moving around behind her.

Yaz nods and flips open the lid, squirting some cream into her hand before handing the bottle to Bill. It’s all happening so fast that the Doctor doesn’t even register  _ what  _ exactly is happening until Yaz drops to her knees in front of her.

“You’re gonna have to take off your boots,” Yaz says, looking up, holding her palm out. The white sun cream looks runny in her hand, kind of like —

The Doctor bends down and unlaces the boots quickly, toeing them and her socks off and leaving them in the sand.

“Perfect,” Yaz murmurs. The sound of the bottle squeezing behind her breaks the Doctor from Yaz’s intense stare, and she feels a shudder run through her body at the word (the memory of her lips and tongue suddenly being pushed to the front of her brains).

“It okay if I touch you?” Yaz asks. The Doctor is nodding before the question is even out of her mouth and she feels more than hears Bill let out a chuckle behind her.

Yaz uses the fingers on her clean hand to dip into the sun cream in her palm and swipe some sporadically over her legs and thighs before placing both hands on one leg and starting to work it into her skin. She looks down at her work the entire time, making sure each part of skin with sun cream is fully rubbed in more than once as her hands work higher and higher, now brushing the bottoms of her knees. She’s just gripped the Doctor’s thighs with both hands when Bill touches her shoulders, starting to spread the cream around on her skin and rubbing it in. Bill goes over her arms next, running her hands up and down the smooth skin there before she moves to her back. Fingers work the cream in over her shoulder blades, hands dipping underneath the racerback of the t-shirt as she tries to cover every inch of exposed skin.

Yaz’s hands grip her thighs and knead and move upwards, fingertips brushing the bottom of the Doctor’s shorts (and she notices with a stunning clarity she didn’t possess on the tardis that the shorts really only come midway down her thighs, and are a bit tight). She leans forward when her hands move to the backs of her thighs and the Doctor could swear she can feel her breath on her skin even though she’s still wearing a t-shirt. If she leans forward just a bit more she’d have her mouth —

Bill’s hands move from her shoulders blades and down her back, going around her sides, right underneath her armpits. The Doctor lets out a surprised squeak as fingers brush the sides of her breasts and her nipples harden underneath the shirt (it must be the breeze, or the anticipation of the cold water).

Hands pull away all at once and she feels a deep ache in the pit of her stomach. She wants their hands back on her, and she doesn’t know really what that means. Well, she  _ knows  _ what it means but she doesn’t want to  _ think about  _ what it means  _ (isn’t _ going to think about Yaz on her knees or Bill touching the sides of her breasts or Yaz’s mouth pressed against her own or Bill’s chuckle in her ear or —)

“Can we swim now?” the Doctor asks, stepping to the side and away from both of them. Yaz gets up from the sand, raising an eyebrow at Bill as she takes the towel from her and wipes off her hands.

They both turn to the Doctor and it suddenly feels like a lot to have them both staring at her, eyes darting down to her chest before pulling back up. She wants to wrap her arms around herself or  _ something  _ (she wishes she’d have worn that bikini stop, though it wouldn’t have helped hide the hardness of her nipples much, really). Her hands fidget at her sides but she waits until Bill nods. “Go ahead,” Bill says, tilting her head towards the water.

The Doctor grins and takes off at a run. Her skin is practically on fire underneath the hot suns  _ (just  _ the suns, not for any other reason) and the first touch of cold water on her feet raises goosebumps on her arms. She wades into the clear purple water until it starts to lap at her stomach before turning around.

Bill and Yaz still stand under the umbrella, both watching her. Bill says something to Yaz who responds with a few words, then Bill nods and turns back to their things to rummage around in the bag again. The Doctor waits in the waves for them but gets bored quickly as Bill ties up her hair and Yaz turns her back on the Doctor, kicking off her sandals underneath one of the chairs. She dives under the waves and the water on her face is cold and refreshing, cooling her heated skin and remaining salty on her lips. She pushes her wet hair back and wipes off her face before diving under again, this time opening her eyes when she stays under. A school of small green fish swim close by and the Doctor watches them pass as bubbles from her nose rise to the surface. Her hair flows about her head and when she looks up she can see the light from the suns through the top of the water reflecting on it, making it turn a different shade of blonde underneath the purple tinted water.

She doesn’t  _ need  _ air all that much since she can hold her breath for a very long time (thank you, Houdini) but she does eventually break the surface of the water again, wiping off her face and pushing her hair back on her head. She’s facing out towards the rest of the ocean and takes a second to just stop and look at the waves, a small boat off in the distance bobs on the surface and the Doctor can see tiny people on deck (tiny to her, they’re probably normal sized. Actually they’re probably bigger than her, she’s not that big this time around). The suns warm the back of her neck and shoulders again where her shirt isn’t sticking to her skin and waves lap around her waist, swaying her slightly in the water.

“You gonna stand there all day?” Yaz asks, suddenly behind her. The Doctor jumps a bit in the water, startled, and turns around, but her response dies on her tongue as soon as she lays eyes on the two women.

She should’ve realized — she should’ve mentally prepared herself for it, but she didn’t, because she’s an idiot. Because she was too focused on her own swimming costume that she didn’t stop to think that Bill and Yaz were both wearing one as well, underneath their clothes. They’ve both shed their outer layers on the chairs set up, leaving Bill in a dark red one piece, the neckline sinfully low, and Yaz in a dark blue bikini top. Her bottom half is covered by the water but the Doctor can just make out the string ties digging into her hips, water lapping at toned abs.

She’s suddenly  _ very  _ thirsty.

It’s a long few moments before she pulls her eyes away from both of them and feels her face heat up (from the hot suns, of course). She looks to the left, just above Bill’s shoulder, and says in a voice that is not at all high pitched, “think I’m gonna go for a swim,” before literally diving under the water and swimming as fast and as far as she possibly can.

(She hears Bill’s laugh even through the water.)

The swim helps. By the time she makes her way back to the shore, her arms ache and she’s a bit cold from the water and the taste of salt on her tongue is now a permanent feature (at least for the next couple hours). Ryan and Graham are back from the bar hut and they’ve both got drinks with little umbrellas in them. The Doctor walks slowly towards her companions, water pulling heavily at her shorts so much that she stops halfway there and has to re-tie the string so they don’t fall down. Her clothes stick to her like a second skin and she tries pulling the shirt away from her stomach but it doesn’t help, only sticking back with a wet slap. Water drips off her with each step and sand sticks to her wet feet and ankles as she approaches her fam.

“How’s the water, Doc?” Graham asks, eyes closed and drink in his hand as he leans back in the beach chair.

“Cold,” Yaz says before the Doctor can respond.

“Apparently,” Bill snorts, raising a brow in her direction.

Ryan doesn’t look up from his phone as he takes another sip of the bright green drink, and neither him nor Graham seem to catch onto the innuendo, but the Doctor does, looking down and realizing her shirt is almost see through _ (almost) _ and very obviously sticking to her tits, nipples hard and poking through the shirt. She tugs at it to pull it away from her skin (her companions don’t need to see  _ that) _ and it helps a little, but not much.

There are only four chairs and her companions take up three of them so the Doctor flops down in front of Bill’s chair and pushes her feet out in front of her, toes digging into the white sand.

“You’re gonna get sand all over y’self,” Bill says, looking over the top of her phone at the Doctor with a raise of her brow. The sunglasses she wears conceal where exactly her gaze lands but the Doctor swears she can feel it on her skin (on a specific part of her body).

“I’ll just have to get back in the water then,” the Doctor says happily. She wipes off her sandy hands on her wet shorts and reaches her hand out for the bag. “Can I have a snack now?”

“If you eat you won’t be able to get back in the water for a half hour,” Yaz says, handing over the bag anyways. The Doctor shrugs — she’s not going to follow that rule anyways. She digs around for a minute until she pulls out a granola bar and a coin, and eats both.

“Did you just eat change?” Ryan asks.

She crunches down on the coin. Ryan winces. The Doctor unwraps the granola bar and takes a bite happily.

“Do y’wanna see if we can find any cool shells?” she asks when it’s silent for more than a minute, all of her companions immersed in their own activities (Graham is asleep, she’s pretty sure, and Ryan and Bill both scroll through their phones, and Yaz is reading a book with one hand while the other traces shapes on the inside of Bill’s wrist).

“Bring me back the nicest one you find,” Yaz says, not looking up from her book.

“Me too, mate. Could be our good luck charms,” Bill adds.

The Doctor raises her brows to Ryan. “You want a shell, Ryan?”

“Nah, got enough of those,” he says.

The Doctor gets to her feet and tries to wipe her sandy hands on her shorts again but they’ve already started to dry and sand is stuck to every part of her from the waist down. She looks around for something else to wipe her hands on and when she turns Bill is sitting up, phone laying on the chair between her legs and towel in her hands. She holds the towel out and wipes the sand off each of her hands before shaking out the towel and hanging it over the back of her chair again, picking up her phone and starting to scroll once more.

The beach is littered with cool shells of all colors and she spends quite a bit of time picking them up, inspecting them, and then tossing them back in the water when they aren’t up to par. She wants to give Yaz and Bill real nice ones, the nicest ones she can find, and none of the shells she picks up are even close to standard. She finds a piece of sea glass and pockets it for Ryan, because he said he didn’t want a shell but he didn’t say anything about sea glass, which is super cool.

About halfway up the beach she finally spots a light pink shell in the sand, shimmering under the bright light of the suns. She practically runs toward it and picks it up, wiping the sand off with her thumb. It’s absolutely perfect with nice ridges and a good shape and it meets every arbitrary standard she had set in her mind. She pockets it with a small smile and keeps searching the shore. A few minutes later she comes across another one, almost exactly the same but a pale green with a bit of blue around the edges and a bit larger than the pink one. She pockets that one as well, and picks up another shell, smaller than the first two and bright red this time.

When she walks back to her companions they’ve already started packing up their things. Yaz has her shorts on but her shirt is still hung over the back of the chair and she’s leaning over Bill who still sits on her own chair. Yaz grips the back of the beach chair with one hand and presses a kiss to Bill’s mouth, smiling when she pulls back and Bill cups her cheek, pulling her in for another. Ryan makes a gagging sound but the Doctor barely hears it over the rushing in her ears, the buzzing under her skin as she remembers what it felt like to have Yaz’s mouth pressed against her own, to have Yaz’s tongue pressed against her own and the thought crosses her mind of what  _ Bill’s _ mouth would taste like; if she would pull the Doctor closer like she pulls Yaz closer, if she would swipe her tongue across her bottom lip, if she would —

Yaz straightens and picks up her shirt, draping it over her shoulder as she folds up the beach chair and throws her book in the bag. The Doctor walks up, toes digging into the hot sand. “Ready to leave, fam?”

“I’m gettin’ hot, Doc,” Graham says, finally awake.

“Yeah, and I’m a bit tired from the swim,” Ryan adds, slipping his feet into his sandals.

“Okay, let me just get me boots on and we can go,” the Doctor says, moving to grab her boots before Bill stops her.

“You’ve got sand on half your body, Doctor. You need to wash that off.”

The Doctor’s hands freeze halfway to her boots and she looks down at her sandy lower half. Bill is right, of course (she usually is). “Oh,” she says. “Right, gimme a mo’, I’ll be right back.”

She runs to the water, shells clicking in her pocket as she goes. She wades into the water up to her ribs and shakes around, trying to get all the sand off her without having to go completely under again (having a see through shirt once is enough for her). The water is cold and causes a new set of goosebumps to rise on her skin as she starts wading back to shore. They’re waiting for her when she gets back, clothes dripping again but with sand only covering her feet.

“Good?” Yaz asks, eyes giving her a slow once over.

“Good,” the Doctor repeats. She picks up her boots and socks and slings the bag over her shoulder, following her companions back to the tardis.

The air is cool when they step through the doors and they all drop the chairs and towels near the front, the Doctor saying, “we’ll pick them up later. Or the tardis will. Either way,” with a wave of her hand. Ryan and Graham go their separate ways, saying they need a shower and a sandwich, respectively. Bill and Yaz stay in the console room as the Doctor moves about barefoot, sandy feet cooling quickly on the metal floor as she takes them from the beach and lands them in the time vortex again.

“See? I told you it would be a quiet day,” the Doctor says, quite chuffed with herself.

“Gotta admit, you were right,” Bill says behind her. “Didn’t think it were possible.” There’s footsteps behind the Doctor and then Bill leans her hip against the console next to her.

“I didn’t either,” Yaz says from her other side, and when the Doctor looks she’s mirroring Bill’s pose. “Did you get us a shell?”

“Oh!” She almost forgot. She digs in her pocket for a second and pulls out the three shells and piece of sea glass. “The sea glass is for Ryan, and the red one is for Graham. This one is for you” — she hands the pink shell to Yaz — “and this one is for you.” She hands the green one to Bill with a grin, looking between the two women to gauge their reactions.

Yaz rubs her thumb over the ridges and Bill flips it over, inspecting the opalescent design on the back of the shell. Both women don’t say anything for a long time until Yaz looks up at her, eyes soft and a small smile on her face. “It’s beautiful,” she says quietly.

“Absolutely gorgeous,” Bill adds, almost mirroring Yaz’s soft expression exactly.

The Doctor looks at them with a grin. “I’m glad you like them,” she says. She’s quite chuffed with herself at having found suitable shells for the two women. She feels a surge of pride as they seem to really like their gifts and she shoves the extra shell and sea glass back into her shorts pocket.

“This was a nice trip,” Bill says. “Really.”

“Gotta admit, I were a bit worried about the crab uprising, but I’m glad I timed it right and got us in just before that.”

Yaz snorts and Bill rolls her eyes.

“Be it you to accidentally take us to a crab uprising,” Yaz quips.

“But I didn’t! And that’s the important part,” the Doctor says with a proud grin.

Yaz nods, looking down at the shell, then at Bill, then back at the Doctor. Her hand reaches forward and tugs on the collar of the Doctor’s t-shirt, readjusting it before laying her palm flat against her collarbone. “I guess it is. Thank you, though.”

The Doctor’s head snaps to Bill when a hand touches her bicep and squeezes softly. Her mouth feels dry again, the salt taste still lingering on her tongue and lips — which is probably why her mouth is dry. That makes sense, right?

“No — no problem, love a quiet trip, me,” she says, only stuttering a bit on the first part. “Beaches are beautiful and the sunset on Phenu is to die for, though it’s far too hot for us to handle so we quite literally  _ would  _ die were we to try and watch it. It gets far above a hundred degrees, and that’s the cool side of the scale —”

Bill’s eyes look at her with amusement, and Yaz has a fond smile on her face. It’s suddenly hotter in the tardis than it was on the beach and the Doctor feels like she can’t breathe (she  _ needs _ to fix that HVAC system soon or she’s going to surely melt). She swallows, throat dry and feeling just a bit faint from the way her hearts pound against her chest, and she takes a step back until both of their hands fall from her body. “Sorry, think I might go settle down for a quick kip — y’know, catch a few winks. Love a good nap. Think I even have a bedroom somewhere on the tardis.”

Both women watch her take another step back, stumbling on a hexagonal stair as she climbs it backwards. “I’ll see you both later, after me nap. Maybe we should take a shower — alone, I mean. I should take a shower, and you should also both shower in your separate showers, because salt water isn’t good for the skin and —” she bumps into the wall next to the doorway leading to the hall. “We should shower. All of us. Separately. Yep.”

She finally turns on her heel and practically runs barefoot from the console room, needing to put as much space between her and Bill and Yaz and the way they looked at her like she was a delicious meal ready to be eaten and the feel of their hands on her and the memory of Yaz’s lips pressed against her own and the thought of how salty Bill’s mouth probably tastes after being at the beach and —

She makes it to a bedroom and slams the door and it feels like she slams a door in her brains as well, cutting off  _ that _ train of thought about Bill and Yaz and lips and tongues and teeth.

* * *

She’s exhausted. Exhausted and a little bit damp and very cold. Her culottes stick to her thighs uncomfortably and she pulls at them to try and resituate herself but it doesn’t help much. She should go change, and take a shower, or at least stand in the disinfectant pod for a few minutes so she doesn’t get a rash or something. This skin is far more sensitive than her last body and the last time she stayed in damp clothes she ended up with a rash on her thighs that hurt for days when she walked.

Really, she just wants to lay down. Find a bed in the tardis and lay down for an hour or two until the ache in her legs and neck goes away. Chained up,  _ twice _ , and put in a pillory until her fam had found her and broken her out (she would’ve gotten out herself eventually, she just hadn’t gotten that far in her plan yet) — she thinks she deserves a nap, and a biscuit.

She’d dropped the boys off at their request, landing in Sheffield with a wheeze and giving them both a wave as they’d left through the front doors. Bill and Yaz decided to stay back, both saying they’d just sleep on the tardis that night since she was going to pick the boys up in the morning anyways. They’d left for showers, telling her to come and find them if she needed anything (like they’re caring for her, like she’s the one who needs to be taken care of in this relationship), but that were hours ago and since then the Doctor hasn’t done much but fiddle with the controls on the console and scuff her boots on the floor, and now she’s sitting on the steps trying to remember where her bedroom is.

“Here,” a voice says behind her and the Doctor jumps slightly on the stair, turning around to find Bill holding out a steaming mug. “You look like shit, mate.”

The Doctor takes the mug from her hands. “Thanks.”

“No problem,” Bill replies, sitting down on the stair next to her. “How’s your wrists? That wood didn’t look too forgiving when we saved your arse.”

“I would’ve gotten m’self out eventually,” the Doctor grumbles.

Bill picks up her free hand and pushes up the sleeve of her coat. There isn’t any terrible physical injury other than a bit of skin rubbed raw and the ache in her back and neck, so there’s that at least. Her thumb rubs over the skin of her wrist, hands so warm they feel almost hot and the Doctor wants to wrap Bill’s arms around her like a heating pad (okay, wow, she must be really tired if she’s thinking about her companions like  _ that  _ again).

“Doesn’t look too bad. Think you’ll survive.” Bill lets go of her hand.

The Doctor takes a sip of her tea and it’s absolutely perfect, exactly how she likes it (with enough sugar to rot your teeth out). It’s almost the exact opposite of how she took her tea in the last body, though Bill didn’t make her tea in the last body so she probably doesn’t know that. Probably guessed this time and got lucky. (Probably has seen the way the Doctor makes her own tea and just remembered.)

The crick in her neck comes back, even with the way the tea warms her body, and the Doctor reaches up to rub it out. “Think me back’s gonna be broken for a while,” she states.

“It hurts?” Bill asks, looking over at her.

“A bit. It’s not that bad —” her words cut off when Bill suddenly moves to the stair behind her, legs on either side of her body. “Bill, what are you doing?”

“Take off your coat. I’ve got great hands for this,” Bill says, and that expression should not send as much heat through the Doctor’s body as it does, _ and yet. _

She sets her tea down on the stair, unable to resist anything Bill wants of her. She slips her coat off her shoulders and lets it lay on the stairs next to her, then sits down again. Bill hooks her fingers under her braces and slides them over her shoulders quickly, quick enough that the Doctor can’t even protest. She’s not even sure what’s really happening until Bill places two hands on her shoulders and digs her thumbs in on either side of her spine.

The Doctor lets out a surprised squeak, then a low groan, unable to help the way it slips from her mouth. Her head tilts forward of its own accord as Bill works circles with her thumbs, touching every single aching part of her back and neck like she’s magic or something. The Doctor grips the edge of the stair with one hand as the sensations threaten to overwhelm her; Bill’s warm hands, her fingers digging into the muscle, strong thighs on either side of the Doctor’s waist, her body so close she’d be able to feel her if she pressed herself back, just a bit, and then she’d —

The Doctor groans again when Bill works a particularly tight spot until it’s relaxed. “God,” Bill says. “If I’d have known you were so tight I would’ve offered this hours ago.”

The innuendo makes the Doctor flush red, images of Bill saying that sentence in other scenarios flood her mind and she seems powerless to stop it, too tired or too worked up from the massage or too  _ something  _ around Bill. Her mouth feels like it’s not her mouth, her words feeling like they’re not her words as they slip from her lips without a second thought.

_ “Bill, _ I could kiss you for this.”

The hands on her shoulders stop and the Doctor suddenly realizes what she’s said — what she’s  _ implied. _

“Oh, Bill, sorry — I didn’t mean it like that, it were the massage and —”

“Do it then.”

The Doctor can’t see her but she hears the challenging note to her voice and it makes her freeze. She feels disoriented as she turns slowly and sure enough, Bill looks down at her with a challenging raise to her brow, hands resting on her knees.

There’s a long silence between them. Probably almost half a minute where the Doctor stares up at Bill and her hearts thump hard against the front of her chest and her brains run through every scenario of what could happen at lightning speed.

And then she does it.

She lifts herself from the stair and crashes their lips together. Her knees dig into the hard floor and their teeth click with the force she’d used to propel herself forward and Bill puts her arms out to catch her, steadying the Doctor so she doesn’t knock her over. It’s a bit frantic at first — she’s unable to hold herself back, feeling a bit out of control as her hand comes up to cup Bill’s cheek and a tongue licks at her lower lip. She parts her mouth willingly and a noise escapes her throat without her consent when a strong tongue darts forward, sliding over her own. It’s hot and wet and the Doctor can feel her body reacting; adrenaline and oxytocin course through her at lightning speed and a heat pools low in her stomach and she honestly thinks she won’t be able to stop now that she’s started.

She’s done for, and she knows it. If she wasn’t able to forget the taste of Yaz’s mouth, then she won’t ever forget the taste of Bill’s.

It’s only a noise behind Bill that finally gets her to pull away and she does so frantically, leaning back and almost falling off the stair when she sees Yaz leaning against the doorway just behind Bill. Her arms are crossed over her chest and her shoulder presses into the metal and the look on her face is unreadable — which is weird because the Doctor is great at reading faces and expressions (she took an entire class on it once). But she can’t read Yaz, and that makes her hearts pound even harder in her chest which also gives her the faint worry that she’s going to pass out or die from a heart attack (unlikely, but possible).

“Yaz!” she says, voice far too high pitched and nervous to be acceptable. She tries again. “Yaz. Sorry. Didn’t see you there — uh, how long —”

“Long enough to see you snogging my girlfriend,” Yaz says.

The Doctor desperately tries to search her brains for an explanation, and none come up. Still, she tries. “It weren’t like that — we were —”

“I saw what you were doin’,” Yaz interrupts, pushing off from the wall and taking a step down. The Doctor can’t tell if she sounds angry or upset or excited — but probably angry, right? She’s just seen the Doctor kissing her girlfriend, so that can’t be good. The Doctor isn’t very well versed in human relationships and dating but she’s traveled with a few couples here and there (but Rory definitely never tried to kiss her), but she still doesn’t know the social protocol for kissing the girlfriend of the girl you’ve also kissed before. Is there social protocol for that? She’s going to need to look that up.

“I’m sorry,” the Doctor starts, then doesn’t know what to say next.

“Don’t be,” Bill says with a smirk. Yaz snorts, then sits down next to her on the stairs.

“I’d love to watch you snog my girlfriend all day, but you need a shower—” she points to the Doctor. “— and you need to make me a cup of tea.”

“Why do I have to make the tea?”

“Because you’ve been snogging the Doctor behind my back,” Yaz quips with a grin.

“I haven’t — one time.  _ One time,  _ and you interrupted before it could even get good!” Bill argues.

Yaz leans towards her with a grin, eyes darting down to her mouth. “Just gonna have to rectify that, then,” she says before pressing forward for a searing kiss that makes even the Doctor blush.

She watches until they part, and then speaks up.

“I don’t know what’s happening.”

Both women look at her at the same time, similar expressions on their face.

Bill says, “If you want, that is. Dunno how alien relationships work with this sort of thing.”

And Yaz says, “We can see where it takes us?”

And the Doctor feels like this conversation is going backwards — like Yaz and Bill say something before the other before it even makes sense, and how is a time lord so bad at keeping track of linear time around them?

Yaz stands and holds her hand out for the Doctor who is still perched precariously on the edge of the stair in front of Bill. “C’mon, you really need a shower.”

“Yeah, no offence, mate, but you smell so bad.”

“That isn’t my fault,” the Doctor protests, taking Yaz’s hand and letting herself be pulled up until she’s standing in front of her, a bit shorter since she’s on a step lower. Yaz smiles softly when she looks down at her and runs her hand through the Doctor’s stiff hair for a second before pulling back and dropping her hand.

“Right then, c’mon. Our room. It’s got the best shower. I think the tardis expanded it just for us,” Yaz says, turning on the step and walking back into the hallway.

“Expanded it for what?” the Doctor asks, following behind. Bill snorts behind her and the Doctor furrows her brows.

“Gotta have room for activities,” Bill says, and that makes the Doctor a bit more confused until realization passes over her and her mouth suddenly goes dry.

“Oh!” she says with a squeak. “Oh, you mean — right, yeah, sorry, okay. Got it.”

“Do you have to antagonize her?” Yaz asks over her shoulder.

“I think it’s my job at this point,” Bill chuckles.

Yaz is right, their shower is bigger than normal and has a huge shower head that can get you wet from any point in the shower. Yaz starts the taps while Bill gets her a towel and the Doctor asks, “Are you two not going to shower?”

Yaz freezes, then slowly looks over at her with a raised brow. “Are you asking us to shower with you?”

The Doctor’s mouth opens and closes like a fish out of water. That’s absolutely  _ not  _ what she meant but now that it’s been mentioned it’s all she can think about.

“No! I were — I meant —”

“And you say  _ I _ antagonize her,” Bill says, coming back into the room with a towel and handing it to the Doctor.

_ “She’s _ the one who asked me if we were all going to shower together.” Yaz feels the water with her wrist before straightening back up, apparently satisfied with the temperature.

Bill laughs at that, then laughs even harder when she turns and sees the bright flush on the Doctor’s cheeks. “Right, another time, maybe,” she says before turning to leave the room. Yaz follows after her.

“Soap is on the holder, don’t eat it all please. The tardis refuses to make us soap so we have to buy our own,” Yaz says. The door shuts behind her with a soft click and then the Doctor is left in the bathroom with the shower running and a towel in her hands and no idea how the hell she got into this (but she’s definitely not going to complain, or back out).

She washes quickly, barely scrubbing the parts that need scrubbing. She’s got too much nervous energy to spend time deep conditioning her hair so she only uses shampoo which is good enough, right? And she only eats a  _ little bit _ of it because it smells like green apple and doesn’t taste too bad. She tries her hardest to not think about why there are support bars screwed into the wall or how the seat at the end is used, but by the end of the shower she’s got an ache in her stomach that won’t go away and about a million different ideas running through her mind.

The clothes they’d left on the sink fit her perfectly, like they’re hers, and she wonders if maybe their washing got mixed up or something. She’ll have to ask (it’s not like she wears a lot of different clothes anyways). She quick runs fingers through her hair, just to get all the tangles out, then steels herself as she places a hand on the doorknob. Her stomach flutters like there’s a bird inside trying to fly out and her palms already feel a bit sweaty and she tries to remind herself  _ it’s just Bill and Yaz. Bill and Yaz, her companions, her friends. Nothing to be nervous about.  _ (Is that what this feeling is? Nervousness?)

She opens the door with flourish and steps out, the steam from the shower spilling from the frame behind her. It probably looks pretty cool. She doesn’t notice. All she really notices is Bill and Yaz on the bed, their thighs pressed together as Bill scrolls through her phone and Yaz flips another page of her book. They look up when she exits and then she doesn’t really know what to do. She doesn’t want to make assumptions about what is going to happen (what’s that earth saying — something like ’when you assume it makes u a mess’) but she also doesn’t  _ not  _ want to make assumptions because she feels like if she doesn’t make herself perfectly clear to the both of them then things won’t happen and she wants things to happen, has been thinking about things that could happen for a while now and —

Yaz closes her book and sets it on the table beside the bed. She swings her legs over and the Doctor notices the long expanse of skin on display, unable to help the way her eyes slowly raise until she reaches her shorts, then following up the loose t-shirt and to her eyes that are watching the Doctor closely.

“Right. We should have a conversation,” Yaz says.

They do. A short one. One where the Doctor stumbles over her words a lot and ends up flustered and blushing at every innuendo Bill makes. One that ends with the Doctor pressed between both women with a mouth on her own and another one on her neck and she literally cannot remember when the simple conversation turned this way, but she does not care in the slightest.

Yaz cups her cheek and tilts her chin up, swiping her tongue over the Doctor’s bottom lip over and over again until she gets the hint and opens her mouth, letting Yaz push past easily. The Doctor lets out a whimper when hands run up her sides and push her shirt up, nails softly scratching at her ribs and under her breasts. She pushes her chest forward but it’s not Yaz’s hands that are touching her but she literally can’t  _ think _ when so much is happening all at once and she feels more than hears Bill chuckle against her neck before she licks her tongue up and bites softly on her shoulder.

The Doctor gasps into Yaz’s mouth and keens quietly in her throat. Her body feels like it’s on fire. Her stomach has a tightness to it that she hasn’t really ever experienced in this body and when hands finally move up to palm her breasts she feels like that coil could snap at any second.

“Please,” the Doctor mumbles against Yaz’s lips. Yaz has one hand in her hair and is gripping tightly, holding her head in place, but she softens when she pulls away.

“That were polite.”

Bill snorts as she places another kiss right underneath her ear, teeth moving up to tug at the chain. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard her ask nicely for anything,” she quips, voice practically spoken into the Doctor’s ear.

The Doctor feels herself flush with indignation. “I ask for things politely all the time!” she retorts. “Just last week I asked you to pass the sugar and —” she cuts off when fingers pinch both her nipples, softly as first then harder as she bites her lips and moans quietly.

She can see Yaz give Bill a look over her shoulder but she doesn’t know what it means until Yaz suddenly moves off the bed and Bill sort of manhandles her until her legs are dangling off the edge, and then Yaz’s fingers hook in her shorts and she stops, on her knees, between her legs, question in her eyes. The hands on her breasts stop their movements as well, no more pinching anymore.

The Doctor nods. “Absolutely, yes. Please hurry.” She tries not to sound too desperate but it probably doesn’t work (she doesn’t care if it does).

Yaz pulls at her shorts and tugs them down her legs, discarding them behind her and running her hands up the inside of the Doctor’s thighs. Bill’s hands move from her breasts and tug her shirt up until it’s stuck under her shoulders and she has to hiss out a  _ “hey” _ in the Doctor’s ear before she gets the hint and lifts her arms, letting Bill undress her top half. Her hands immediately go back to her breasts as Yaz starts kissing up the inside of one thigh, then the other. She stops just short of where the Doctor needs her most and it’s driving her absolutely mad. Her cunt throbs in time with her double heartbeat and it’s only getting worse by the second.

She lets her head tilt back until it’s resting on Bill’s shoulder. She feels safe here, in Bill’s arms with Yaz in front of her. She feels comfortable, like she doesn’t have to be more than she is. She feels like she’s always belonged in this space between these two women in this time (even though that’s impossible and she’s belonged to many other people before them). She feels like if she doesn’t come soon she’s going to literally explode and they’ll have to hose her off the walls and figure out how to fly the tardis home.

The second Yaz’s tongue comes into contact with her clit, the Doctor jumps just slightly. Her hand comes to rest on the back of Yaz’s head by instinct but she finds she really likes the way her hair feels, how soft it is between her fingers. Bill rolls her nipples between two fingers and the Doctor melts into her touch, going practically slack under her hands. Yaz uses her fingers to spread her further and then the Doctor doesn’t know what happens because she’s pretty sure she blacks out. All she feels is a heat coursing through her body, a tightening in her stomach that gets worse with each pass of Yaz’s tongue and  _ Bill. _ Bill, sitting behind her, warm against her back and licking at her neck and biting at her ear and she says in a voice the Doctor has never heard from her before but wants to hear for the rest of her long life, “She’s good at that, right?”

The Doctor can only groan in response. Be it Bill and Yaz to be able to leave her speechless. She doesn’t even notice the hand that’s moved until a finger presses against her and her breath catches in her throat. Yaz looks up as she presses it forward, slipping just the first knuckle in, and the Doctor feels herself clench hard around it, her clit throbbing on Yaz’s tongue. She’s not going to be able to hold out much longer, she knows that for a fact.

Yaz’s finger offers little relief and the Doctor starts babbling, words spilling from her mouth with no meaningful connection between them. “More, Yaz. I need — please.  _ Please _ ,” she pants. A hand is tangled in her hair and she doesn’t know when it had left her breast but she doesn’t care —  _ can’t  _ care. It tugs until she’s looking at Bill with her head tilted to the side at an almost uncomfortable angle and Bill connects their lips (since the Doctor can’t do much but whine into her open mouth and let herself be taken).

There’s a noise between her legs that sounds like a moan and the Doctor moans in response at just the idea of Yaz watching Bill absolutely ravish her. Another finger pushes inside and the Doctor practically sobs into Bill’s mouth. That coil in her stomach is so tight that she’s sure she won’t be able to hold on for a third. Yaz pumps slowly, letting her get used to it, but the Doctor grips her hair in her fist and rolls her hips forward and Yaz immediately complies, pumping her fingers faster and curling them up to rub a spot that makes the Doctor see stars.

She starts babbling again, unable to keep the sounds back, and most of them don’t sound like anything between the deep kisses Bill gives her, but some come through as a mix of names and curses and half thought sentences that trail off into the ether. She could be talking about the secret to the universe, the secret to herself. She could be saying her own name over and over again, or telling them backstories of different bodies and different times. She could be saying anything, and she doesn’t care in the slightest. Her whole body — her whole  _ being  _ — is focused on release and she chases it like a cat with a mouse.

She comes suddenly and without warning. It’s Bill that pushes her over the edge when she mumbles into her ear, “ _ my turn next,”  _ and the Doctor can’t stop herself from falling. Her cunt pulses hard around Yaz’s fingers as she keeps fucking her and the Doctor’s hips roll forward repeatedly, needing  _ more.  _ The suction on her clit lets up when she whimpers, almost in pain but the kind of pain that she doesn’t ever want to stop. She shudders in Bill’s arms and tries to fuck Yaz’s mouth and if she died right now, in this moment, she’d be okay with it. No regeneration needed, she’d pass peacefully.

Faintly she registers Bill moving from behind her so she can lay down on the soft bed that smells like both of them. She turns her head to the side and breathes in deep at the sheets, eyes closed and cunt still throbbing. Every push of Yaz’s fingers sends shockwaves through her that have her twitch and the hand that was gripping hair is now free (she doesn’t remember letting go, but that’s alright). She feels like jelly, like that lad she met on Igneax who was literally made of jelly. Nice lad, had some trouble with women but —

An arm snakes around her waist and a soft kiss is pressed under her jaw. There’s the sound of some moving and then a body pressed against her other side, a kiss pressed under her jaw on that side as well. The Doctor smiles dreamily. Her chest still heaves, body still thrumming with energy and hearts beating fast in her chest, but the two women on either side of her seem to calm her.

“You think we broke her?” Bill asks quietly, mouth pressed to her shoulder.

“Probably. Gonna have to fly ourselves home,” Yaz says.

“You better not touch the console,” the Doctor mumbles, exhaustion lacing her voice. Her hands blindly reach out on either side of her until she’s touching both women — a finger hooked through Yaz’s and a hand on Bill’s hip.

“I think at this point the tardis would absolutely let us fly her,” Yaz says.

The Doctor scoffs. “I doubt it.” The tardis makes a noise that definitely says the opposite.

Bill laughs and the Doctor wonders if she knows what the tardis said — if she’s been with her so long that she can understand her. “Yeah, she likes us. Even added your clothes to our dresser.”

The Doctor’s eyes fly open —  _ of course. _ “So  _ that’s  _ why me clothes are here! I thought we’d mixed up the washing.”

Bill snorts. “Yeah, she did it a few days ago. We think that was like, a sign or something.”

“We think it was her approval. She thinks you’re too uptight,” Yaz says.

“I’m not —” the Doctor turns her head to look at Yaz, brows furrowed.  _ “I’m not uptight.” _

“You are sometimes, mate,” Bill says and the Doctor turns her head the other way to look at her with betrayal in her eyes. “You were worse as a man, though. But christ knows I wouldn’t have shagged you then.”

“What was she like as a man?” Yaz asks, voice soft and curious.

“Old,” Bill says.

“Oi! I’m old now! I could be your grandfather!” the Doctor protests.

Bill ignores her, looking over her at Yaz. “Used to run like a penguin with its ass on fire. Not much better in this body, honestly.”

“I don’t — I didn’t used to run like a penguin with my ass on fire. I don’t know what you’re talking about.” The Doctor huffs indignantly. She doesn’t know if she likes pillow talk with these two (she does, she absolutely loves it).

“Yeah, you air swim now. Movin’ your arms all about. It’s fun to watch,” Yaz says and when the Doctor looks over at her she’s got a playful glint in her eyes, a soft smile on her face.

“I don’t like either of you. I want new companions,” the Doctor states.

“Yeah, sure you do. Good luck, mate. I’m harder to get rid of than the Cybermen,” Bill says, pulling her closer and pressing another kiss to her neck. Her clothes press against the Doctor’s arm and she realizes both of them are still fully clothed, having not come after the Doctor left this plane of existence with that mind blowing orgasm.

“You’re both still dressed,” she states, looking between them.

“Good observation,” Yaz quips but her eyes have gone dark, breathing a little heavier. She leans forward and presses her lips against the Doctor’s, not waiting a second before pushing her tongue forward. The Doctor can taste herself in Yaz’s mouth and she lets out a small whimper. Her head is turned from Yaz to Bill and suddenly the hands that were just resting are now stroking her skin, nails running down her stomach.

The Doctor sucks in a shuddery breath when they part and looks between the two women quickly. “We should rectify that,” she says, an excited grin taking over her face before she moves to straddle Bill’s hips.

“I see her energy is back,” Bill notes.

“Can’t keep me down for long,” the Doctor says, leaning back down to connect their lips.

Later, when they’re laying in bed, naked and sweaty and exhausted, the Doctor will silently thank the universe for her companions. The universe owes her nothing and will never actively work to help her, but she feels like this might be a bit of relief given to her. If anything, it’s a bit of calm amongst the chaos, and that might be enough, at least for the moment.

**Author's Note:**

> as always find me @zanthetran on tumblr <3


End file.
